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POPSCan information get back out of black holes? With this assumption in hand, the team recalculated what the centre of a black hole might look like. To simplify their equations, they used only two dimensions instead of the three dimensions of space and one of time that exist in our Universe. In a two-dimensional system, they found that the singularity vanished and was replaced by a bizarre region where quantum fluctuations ran wild. Space-time in that part of the hole would become so unpredictable that all conventional ideas of cause and effect would break down. "Classical intuition fails in that region, but quantum mechanics is definitely happy," says Ashtekar, who will report the results in the 20 May issue of Physical Review Letters 1. If black holes behave in the way Ashtekar predicts, information will never be lost and quantum mechanics will continue to function, even in the extreme environment beyond the event horizon.
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POPSBefore the Big Bang - the Big Bounce Now, however, Dr Bojowald and fellow physicists are exploring territory unknown even to Einstein - the time before the Big Bang - using his new theory, called Loop Quantum Cosmology. An analysis of this, one of a series of newly-emerging theories which combine Einstein's theory of gravity (general relativity) with that of the subatomic world (quantum theory), "is supposed to provide a non-singular framework in which one could address the question of what was there before the Big Bang," he says.
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POPSArtificial General Intelligence: Barking up the wrong tree? The question is: could Kurzweil and Goertzel's Aritifical General Intelligence genuinely surpass the human brain? Or is ti simply mimicing it? Their solution still relies on computation, but there is no evidence that the human brain makes any such calculations to arrive at its conclusions. If so, what needs to be done in order to develop a computer system that works the same way as the human brain? And what about the mother of all conundrums: free will. Goertzel pretends it doesn't exist at all, but how could we motivate even a self-aware computer to do things on its own initiative?
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POPSThe Shortest Interval of Time The shortest theoretically measurable period of time is the so called Planck time. Because shorter periods of time cannot be measured, everything that happens between two Planck times may or may not be total chaos defying the laws of physics as we perceive them in longer timescales.
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POPSGraphic: Timeline of the Big Bang An informative graphical timeline of the very creation of time, space, matter, and energy in our universe. Cool! I just clipped the first paragraph of the nicely written description that accompanies it. Of course, cosmology, cosmogony, and quantum physics, and the origins of space-time are some of the hardest fields of study being pursued right now. Any other pointers to clip-size explanations would be welcome additions to Clipmarks.
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